Fund Crisis
In 1952, the Republicans chose General Dwight D. Eisenhower as their Presidential candidate, who then selected Nixon as his running mate, while the Democrats nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for president and Alabama Senator John Sparkman for vice president. The California delegation to the 1952 Republican National Convention, including Senator Nixon, had been pledged to the state's "favorite son" candidate, Governor Earl Warren, who hoped to gain the presidential nomination in a brokered convention. Warren failed in his attempt to gain the nomination, and his supporters alleged that Nixon had worked behind the scenes to nominate Eisenhower despite his pledge to support Warren, and accused him of political opportunism for accepting the vice presidential nomination. A disgruntled Warren supporter from Pasadena leaked the Fund story to several reporters.
Nixon had campaigned for public integrity in his time in the Senate, even calling for the resignation of his own party chairman, Guy Gabrielson, when he was implicated in a loan scandal. By using such "indignant rhetoric", Nixon had "weakened his own position" when the Fund crisis erupted.
Read more about this topic: Checkers Speech
Famous quotes containing the words fund and/or crisis:
“I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“A crisis unmasks everyone.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)